Methods and systems for high bandwidth communications interface

ABSTRACT

A pair of ground planes arranged in parallel, a dielectric medium disposed in between the pair of ground planes, and a set of at least four signal conductors disposed in the dielectric medium, the set of at least four signal conductors having (i) a first pair of signal conductors arranged proximate to a first ground plane of the pair of ground planes and (ii) a second pair of signal conductors arranged proximate to a second ground plane of the pair of ground planes, each signal conductor of the set of at least four signal conductors configured to carry a respective signal corresponding to a symbol of a codeword of a vector signaling code.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.15/457,935, filed Mar. 13, 2017, entitled “Methods and Systems for HighBandwidth Communications Interface”, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 14/253,584, file Apr. 15, 2014, entitled “Methodsand Systems for High Bandwidth Communications Interface”, which claimsthe benefit of U.S. provisional application No. 61/812,667 filed on Apr.16, 2013, all of which are incorporated herein by reference in theirentirety for all purposes.

REFERENCES

The following references are herein incorporated by reference in theirentirety for all purposes:

U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0268225 of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 12/784,414, filed May 20, 2010, naming Harm Cronie and AminShokrollahi, entitled “Orthogonal Differential Vector Signaling”(hereinafter “Cronie I”);

U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0302478 of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 12/982,777, filed Dec. 30, 2010, naming Harm Cronie and AminShokrollahi, entitled “Power and Pin Efficient Chip-to-ChipCommunications with Common-Mode Resilience and SSO Resilience”(hereinafter “Cronie II”);

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/030,027, filed Feb. 17, 2011, namingHarm Cronie, Amin Shokrollahi and Armin Tajalli, entitled “Methods andSystems for Noise Resilient, Pin-Efficient and Low Power Communicationswith Sparse Signaling Codes” (hereinafter “Cronie III”);

U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/753,870, filed Jan. 17, 2013,naming John Fox, Brian Holden, Peter Hunt, John D Keay, AminShokrollahi, Richard Simpson, Anant Singh, Andrew Kevin John Stewart,and Giuseppe Surace, entitled “Methods and Systems for Chip-to-chipCommunication with Reduced Simultaneous Switching Noise” (hereinaftercalled “Fox I”); and

U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/763,403, filed Feb. 11, 2013,naming John Fox, Brian Holden, Ali Hormati, Peter Hunt, John D Keay,Amin Shokrollahi, Anant Singh, Andrew Kevin John Stewart, GiuseppeSurace, and Roger Ulrich, entitled “Methods and Systems for HighBandwidth Chip-to-Chip Communications Interface” (hereinafter called“Fox II”).

U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/773,709, filed Mar. 6, 2013,naming John Fox, Brian Holden, Peter Hunt, John D Keay, AminShokrollahi, Andrew Kevin John Stewart, Giuseppe Surace, and RogerUlrich, entitled “Methods and Systems for High Bandwidth Chip-to-ChipCommunications Interface” (hereinafter called “Fox III”).

BACKGROUND

In communication systems, information may be transmitted from onephysical location to another. Furthermore, it is typically desirablethat the transport of this information is reliable, is fast and consumesa minimal amount of resources. One of the most common informationtransfer media is the serial communications link, which may be based ona single wire circuit relative to ground or other common reference,multiple such circuits relative to ground or other common reference, ormultiple circuits used in relation to each other.

In the general case, a serial communications link is used over multipletime periods. In each such time period, a signal or signals over thelink represents, and thus conveys, some amount of information typicallymeasured in bits. Thus, at a high level, a serial communications linkconnects a transmitter to a receiver and the transmitter transmits asignal or signals each time period, the receiver receives the signal orsignals (or at least something close, as noise and other effects mightkeep the received signal from being identical to the sent signal). Theinformation being conveyed by the transmitter is “consumed” by thetransmitter, and representative signals are generated. The receiverattempts to determine the conveyed information from the signals itreceives. In the absence of overall errors, the receiver can outputexactly the bits that were consumed by the transmitter.

The optimum design of a serial communications link often depends on theapplication for which it is used. In many cases, there are trade-offsbetween various performance metrics, such as bandwidth (number of bitsthat can be conveyed per unit time and/or per period), pin efficiency(number of bits or bit equivalents that can be conveyed at one timedivided by the number of wires required for that conveyance), powerconsumption (units of energy consumed by the transmitter, signal logic,receiver, etc. per bit conveyed), SSO resilience and cross-talkresilience, and expected error rate.

An example of a serial communications link is a differential signaling(DS) link. Differential signaling operates by sending a signal on onewire and the opposite of that signal on a paired wire; the signalinformation is represented by the difference between the wires ratherthan their absolute values relative to ground or other fixed reference.Differential signaling enhances the recoverability of the originalsignal at the receiver over single ended signaling (SES), by cancellingcrosstalk and other common-mode noise. There are a number of signalingmethods that maintain the desirable properties of DS while increasingpin-efficiency over DS. Many of these attempts operate on more than twowires simultaneously, using binary signals on each wire, but mappinginformation in groups of bits.

Vector signaling is a method of signaling. With vector signaling,pluralities of signals on a plurality of wires are consideredcollectively although each of the plurality of signals may beindependent. Each of the collective signals is referred to as acomponent and the number of plurality of wires is referred to as the“dimension” of the vector. In some embodiments, the signal on one wireis entirely dependent on the signal on another wire, as is the case withDS pairs, so in some cases the dimension of the vector may refer to thenumber of degrees of freedom of signals on the plurality of wiresinstead of the number of wires in the plurality of wires.

With binary vector signaling, each component takes on a coordinate value(or “coordinate”, for short) that is one of two possible values. As anexample, eight SES wires may be considered collectively, with eachcomponent/wire taking on one of two values each signal period. A “codeword” of this binary vector signaling is one of the possible states ofthat collective set of components/wires. A “vector signaling code” or“vector signaling vector set” is the collection of valid possible codewords for a given vector signaling encoding scheme. A “binary vectorsignaling code” refers to a mapping and/or set of rules to mapinformation bits to binary vectors. In the example of eight SES wires,where each component has a degree of freedom allowing it to be either ofthe two possible coordinates, the number of code words in the collectionof code words is 2{circumflex over ( )}8, or 256.

With non-binary vector signaling, each component has a coordinate valuethat is a selection from a set of more than two possible values. A“non-binary vector signaling code” refers to a mapping and/or set ofrules to map information bits to non-binary vectors.

Examples of vector signaling methods are described in Cronie I, CronieII, Cronie III, Fox I, Fox II, and Fox III.

BRIEF SUMMARY

A transmitter and receiver can communicate using a serial communicationslink, wherein the serial communications link uses signaling that isvector signaling, balanced and can be detected using a plurality ofcomparators having inputs coupled to differing combinations of sums ofcomponents of a vector signal.

The number of components can be four, or more or less than four. Thenumber of coordinate values for a component can be four, or more or lessthan four. For example, a link might use four components with fourpossible coordinate values, a high value, a low value, and inverses ofthe high and low values, such that a signal having the high valuecancels out three signals having the inverse of the low value and asignal having the inverse of the high value cancels out three signalshaving the low value and, in this manner, the link can convey three bitsin a signal period using those four components by mapping the eightpossible three bit combinations onto the eight vector code wordsrepresented by the four permutations of one high value and threeinverses of the low value plus the four permutations of the inverse ofone high value and three low values. In a more specific embodiment, thehigh and low values are voltage values and relative to a reference, thehigh value and its inverse have the same magnitude but opposite signs,the low value and its inverse have the same magnitude but oppositesigns, and the high value has a magnitude three times the low value.

In a receiver, some number of comparators compares sums of signals. In aspecific embodiment, there are three comparators, each which comparessums of two of the received signals and collectively the output of thethree comparators identify the three bits encoded by the signals. Signalequalization as commonly provided using Decision Feedback Equalizationtechniques may be advantageously applied at this receive comparisonstage, or may more conventionally be applied to the received wiresignals.

In accordance with at least one embodiment of the invention, processesand apparatuses provide for transmitting data over physical channels toprovide a high speed, low latency interface providing high totalbandwidth at low power utilization, such as to interconnect integratedcircuit chips in a multi-chip system. In some embodiments, differentvoltage, current, etc. levels are used for signaling and more than twolevels may be used, such as a ternary vector signaling code wherein eachwire signal has one of three values, or a quaternary signaling systemwherein each wire signal has one of four values.

This Brief Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Brief Summary is not intended to identify key oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subjectmatter. Other objects and/or advantages of the present invention will beapparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon review of the DetailedDescription and the included drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure will bedescribed with reference to the drawings. Same numbers are usedthroughout the disclosure and figures to reference like components andfeatures.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an example system comprising a transmittingdevice, interconnection, and receiving device, in accordance with atleast one embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 shows several physical channel topologies suited for use with thedescribed signal coding in at least one embodiment in accordance withthe invention.

FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate different transmission modes in differentialand H4 encoded communications.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a H4 encoder and transmitter of the FIG. 1system, in accordance with at least one embodiment of the invention.

FIGS. 5A and 5B show block diagrams for the receiver and H4 decodercomponents of the FIG. 1 system utilizing a single process phase andmultiple processing phases, in accordance with at least one embodimentof the invention.

FIG. 6 is a chart shown example transmit wire values for each transmitdata value, and corresponding example receive comparator outputs andreceive data words, in accordance with at least one embodiment of theinvention.

FIGS. 7A and 7B show block diagrams of receivers incorporating twoapproaches to DFE compensation, in accordance with at least oneembodiment of the invention.

FIGS. 8A and 8B show individual wire signals of a transmitted H4 codeand the combined signaling of all wires depicting the use of two of thefour signal levels per transmit interval, in accordance with at leastone embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating a method, in accordance with someembodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Despite the increasing technological ability to integrate entire systemsinto a single integrated circuit, multiple chip systems and subsystemsretain significant advantages. The physical infrastructure to supporthigh-bandwidth chip-to-chip connectivity is available, if the power,complexity, and other circuit implementation issues for such interfacescould be resolved.

For purposes of description and without limitation, example embodimentsof at least some aspects of the invention herein described assume asystems environment of (1) at least one point-to-point communicationsinterface connecting two integrated circuit chips representing atransmitter and a receiver, (2) wherein the communications interface issupported by an interconnection group of four high-speed transmissionline signal wires providing medium loss connectivity at, as an example,18.75 GHz (37.3 GigaSymbols/second) without excessive ripple losscharacteristics or reflections, (3) the interconnection group of signalwires displaying low intra-ensemble skew, and (4) the communicationsinterface operating at the example signaling rate of 37.3GigaSymbols/second, delivering an aggregate throughput of approximately112 gigabits/sec over the four wire circuit.

As subsequently described, at least one embodiment of the invention useslow signal swing current mode logic pin drivers and interconnectionwiring terminated at both transmitter and receiver.

Physical Channel Wiring

Several example physical channel topologies in accordance with at leastone embodiment of the invention are shown in FIG. 2.

Example configuration 201 illustrates in cross-section a quad-boxstripline, with four signal conductors 202 embedded in dielectric medium203 between ground planes 204. In some embodiments, vias 205 areincorporated to interconnect ground planes 204. In some embodiments, thelocations of signal conductors 202 are modified by introducing periodichorizontal position offsets so as to provide more uniformcharacteristics for the four signal paths. As one example, the upper twosignal conductors of 202 may be shifted left as the lower two signalconductors of 202 are simultaneously shifted right as illustrated in210, and then the direction of these shifts reversed on each subsequentoffset cycle, with the period and extent of the offsets chosen toprovide more uniform characteristics for the four signal paths.

Example configuration 211 illustrates in cross-section a quadax cable,with four signal conductors 212 embedded in dielectric medium 213surrounded or essentially surrounded by conductive shield 214. Theexternal profile of the dielectric medium and conductive shield will inpractice be a balance between manufacturing simplicity (e.g. a roundprofile as in conventional coax cable) and optimized transmissioncharacteristics (e.g. the square or rectangular shape of 201) as issuggested by the profile provided for illustrative purposes at 214. Aswith the previous example, periodic perturbations of the inter-wirespacing of conductors 212 and/or their locations may be made to providemore uniform characteristics for the four signal paths.

Example configuration 221 shows a twisted quad cable, where individuallyinsulated signal conductors 222 are twisted as a group around a commonaxis, either with or without a central insulating strand 223 to controloverall diameter and spacing. Some embodiments may further optionallyincorporate at least one of a central conductive neutral wire,surrounding insulation layer, and surrounding conductive shield layer toallow additional control over impedance characteristics and/or noiseisolation.

It will be apparent to one familiar with the art that each example ofFIG. 2 utilizes three-dimensional structuring of signal conductors toprovide essentially equal impedance characteristics for each of the foursignal wires, and also essentially equal inter-wire couplingcharacteristics among the four signal wires. These characteristicsfacilitate signal propagation modes providing effectively equalpropagation velocity for signals on each wire, as well as effectivelyequal attenuation and frequency response characteristics. Comparabletransmission characteristics may also be provided by other known cabledesigns, including braid twisted quad conductor cable, quad micro-coaxcable, etc.

Other known cable designs including quad microstripline, dual pairmicrostripline, and dual twisted pair may also be usable with thedescribed invention under some conditions. With such cables, not allsignal propagation modes for the subsequently described H4 coded signalsare identical, typically with one of the three major propagation modesexperiencing reduced receive signal levels and slower propagationvelocity. Some embodiments of the invention provide compensation forthese effects through additional amplification of received signals ofthe degraded mode and delayed sampling of that mode's received signalvalues. Other embodiments provide a legacy communication capability,where signals are communicated using conventional dual differentialtransmission and reception, with reduced aggregate communicationsthroughput.

Example signal levels, signal frequencies, and physical dimensionsdescribed herein are provided for purposes of explanation, and are notlimiting. Other embodiments of the invention may utilize differentsignaling levels, connection topology, termination methods, and/or otherphysical interfaces, including optical, inductive, capacitive, orelectrical interconnection. Similarly, examples based on unidirectionalcommunication from transmitter to receiver are presented for clarity ofdescription; combined transmitter-receiver embodiments and bidirectionalcommunication embodiments are also explicitly in accordance with theinvention.

Encoding Information Using Hadamard Transforms

The Hadamard Transform, also known as the Walsh-Hadamard transform, is asquare matrix of entries +1 and −1 so arranged that both all rows andall columns are mutually orthogonal. Hadamard matrices are known for allsizes 2N as well as for selected other sizes. In particular, thedescriptions herein rely on 2×2 and 4×4 Hadamard matrices.

The order 2 Hadamard matrix is:

$\begin{matrix}{H_{2} = \begin{bmatrix}1 & 1 \\1 & {- 1}\end{bmatrix}} & \left( {{Eqn}.\mspace{14mu} 1} \right)\end{matrix}$and conventional differential encoding of one bit A may be obtained bymultiplying A by the Hadamard matrix H₂ to obtain values for theresulting output signals W and X. It will be apparent to one familiarwith the art that multiplication times the upper vector of the matrixcorresponds to introduction of a positive or negative common-mode signalonto W and X, a transmission mode not generally used in practice ondifferential circuits, while multiplication times the lower vector ofthe matrix produces the familiar differential signals of {+1, −1} for Apositive, and {−1, +1} for A negative. This is illustrated in FIG. 3A,where the two signal lines 301 and 302 representing the signals W and Xcarry the encoded transmission mode 303 representing the {+1, −1} vectormultiplied by the encoded bit A.

The order 4 Hadamard matrix is:

$\begin{matrix}{H_{4} = \begin{bmatrix}{+ 1} & {+ 1} & {+ 1} & {+ 1} \\{+ 1} & {- 1} & {+ 1} & {- 1} \\{+ 1} & {+ 1} & {- 1} & {- 1} \\{+ 1} & {- 1} & {- 1} & {+ 1}\end{bmatrix}} & \left( {{Eqn}.\mspace{14mu} 2} \right)\end{matrix}$and encoding of the three bits A, B, C may be obtained by multiplyingthose bits times the Hadamard matrix H₄ to obtain four output values. Asin the previous example, the uppermost vector corresponds to common modesignaling, which is not used herein, with the next three vectors beingused to encode bits A, B, and C respectively into outputs W, X, Y, Z.This is graphically illustrated in FIG. 3B, where the four signal line311, 312, 313, and 314 represent the signals W, X, Y, Z respectively ineach illustration, with the three illustrations representing the threedistinct transmission modes representing the bit A multiplied by thevector {+1, −1, +1, −1} at 320, the bit B multiplied by the vector {+1,+1, −1, −1} at 330, and the bit C multiplied by the vector {+1, −1, −1,+1} at 340.

As in the example of FIG. 3A, the ovals in FIG. 3B identify signal pairscarrying opposing values. However, unlike in the previous example whereonly one transmission mode 303 was available for use, in the example ofFIG. 3B each of the three illustrated modes 320, 330, and 340 may beused simultaneously to transmit A, B, and C. Thus, the observed signallevels on W, X, Y, Z used in such manner correspond to the sums of thethree modes.

One familiar with the art will note that all possible values of A, B, Cencoded in this manner result in mode summed values for W, X, Y, Z whichare balanced; that is, summing to the constant value zero. If the modesummed values for W, X, Y, Z are scaled such that their maximum absolutevalue is 1 (that is, the signals are in the range +1 to −1 forconvenience of description,) it will be noted that all achievable valuesare permutations of the values {+1, −⅓, −⅓, −⅓} or of the values {−1, ⅓,⅓, ⅓}. These are called the code words of the vector signaling code H4.

H4 Code

As used herein, “H4” code, also called Ensemble NRZ code, refers to avector signaling code and associated logic for such code wherein atransmitter consumes three bits and outputs signals on four wires ineach symbol period. In some embodiments, parallel configurationscomprising more than one group may be used, with each group comprisingthree bits transmitted on four wires per symbol period and an H4 encoderand an H4 decoder per group. With an H4 code, there are four signalwires and four possible coordinate values, represented herein as +1, +⅓,−⅓, and −1. The H4 code words are balanced, in that each code word iseither one of the four permutations of (+1, −⅓, −⅓, −⅓) or one of thefour permutations of (−1, +⅓, +⅓, +⅓), all such permutations summing tothe equivalent of a zero value. H4 encoded signal waveforms are shown inFIG. 8A. It should be noted that although the constellation of all codewords utilizes four distinct signal levels, only two signal levels willbe utilized in any one code word, as is illustrated by a superpositionof all four signal waveforms, as shown in FIG. 8B.

In a specific embodiment, a +1 might be sent as a signal using an offsetof 200 mV, while a −1 is sent as a signal using an offset of −200 mV, a+⅓ is sent as a signal using an offset of 66 mV, and a −⅓ is sent as asignal using an offset of −66 mV, wherein the voltage levels are withrespect to a fixed reference. Note that the average of all of thesignals sent (or received, disregarding asymmetric effects of skew,crosstalk, and attenuation) in any single time interval regardless ofthe code word represented is “0”, corresponding to the offset voltage.There are eight distinct code words in H4, which is sufficient to encodethree binary bits per transmitted symbol interval.

Other variants of the H4 coding described above exist as well. Thesignal levels are given as examples, without limitation, and representincremental signal values from a nominal reference level.

Encoder and Transmitter

FIG. 4 is a block diagram for one embodiment of the H4 encoder andtransmitter components of the FIG. 1 system in accordance with theinvention. This embodiment uses source- and destination-terminatedcurrent mode logic drivers with reduced signal swing.

High-speed communications embodiments often exceed the performancecapabilities of a single communications circuit instance. As an exampleof how such a limitation is overcome, FIG. 4 shows as an example a 4:1mux architecture that supports a line rate of as much as 4× thecapabilities of a single circuit instance in the same processtechnology. Each of the processing stages 420 and 430 are embodied asfour distinct instances, each instance processing source data intosymbol data for one transmission interval. Any number of phases may beused, from a single phase performing all operations, to sixteen or more,with each of such multiple phases possibly also extending over a greateror lesser portion of the described transmission system than thisexample.

In one embodiment in accordance with the invention, source data, whichmay be subjected to scrambling, encryption, or encapsulation beyond thescope of this disclosure, is provided at 405. Multiplexer 410sequentially distributes consecutive source data elements to the fourencoding phases, and multiplexer 440 sequentially combines the resultingfour encoded results into a single data stream for transmission. Oneembodiment accepts source data in twelve bit increments, which is thendistributed as four three-bit portions to the four processing phases,and subsequently combined to produce the higher rate transmitted stream.Each H4 encoder 420 maps three bits of user data to one H4 code word,with the results buffered in flip-flops 430. At each symbol interval,one buffered H4 code word is selected, and then converted to the chosenwire signal levels by line drivers 450 for transmission oninterconnection 460. This allows for transmission rates to be multiplesof the processing rates of a single encoder or decoder.

The specific mapping function between three bits of source data and aspecific H4 code word may be chosen for implementation convenience, aswill be subsequently described.

Receiver and Decoder

The complementary receiver and decoder for the described H4 transmittersystem perform a number of operations. The interconnection wires areterminated in a matched impedance, conventional amplification andfiltration may be applied to compensate for channel attenuation,received signal levels corresponding to the symbol representations ofthe H4 code are measured, symbols interpreted as valid code words of theH4 code, and the detected code words mapped back to received data.

At least one embodiment in accordance with the invention combines atleast some aspects of these receiver and decoder operations forefficiency. One embodiment in accordance with the invention shown inFIGS. 5A and 5B incorporate a differential comparator circuit operatingon multiple inputs, summing the received signal values on two selectedwires, summing the received signal values on the remaining two wires,and outputting a comparison of the two summed results. Such amulti-input comparator requires no fixed signal level reference and canprovide a good level of common-mode noise rejection, in a circuitcombining elements of line receiver and H4 code word detectionoperations. At least one embodiment in accordance with the inventionfurther incorporates line equalization and amplification with the linereceiver and code word detection operations.

Three instances of such multi-input comparator circuits operating onpermutations of the same four input signals are sufficient to detect allcode words of H4. That is, given a multi-input comparator that performsthe operationR=(J+L)−(K+M)  (Eqn. 3)where J, K, L, M are variables representing the four input signalsvalues, then as one example and without limitation, the inputpermutations producing the three results R₀, R₁, R₂ based on theequationsR ₀=(W+Y)−(X+Z)  (Eqn. 4)R ₁=(Y+Z)−(W+X)  (Eqn. 5)R ₂=(Y+X)−(Z+W)  (Eqn. 6)are sufficient to unambiguously identify each code word of vectorsignaling code H4 as represented by receive signal input values W, X, Y,Z. The values R₀, R₁, R₂ may represent analog signal results if both theaddition and difference functions are performed linearly, or mayrepresent binary outputs if the difference function is performed by adigital comparator, equivalent to performing a sign( ) function onanalog outputs. Because of the nature of the encoded H4 code words, noneof the analog results R₀, R₁, R₂ will be at zero, implying that none ofthe corresponding digital comparator results will be ambiguous.

For some encoder mappings of source data to transmitted H4 code words, adirect relationship between the detected result of these three receivecomparators and the receive data exists, eliminating the need foradditional decode mapping logic at the receiver. Thus, a preferredembodiment will first select the desired permutations of input signalsto be processed by each of the three multi-input receive comparators,will then document the three comparator output values obtained for eachvalid code word, and will then define a transmit mapping function thatperforms the corresponding mapping of three transmit data bits to thefour transmit signal values of the corresponding code word. One exampleof such a mapping is shown in FIG. 6.

FIG. 5A shows a block diagram of such a receiver for a group of fourwires using the H4 code. Each receive interconnection line 505 isterminated at 510. In some embodiments, line termination may furtherincorporate overvoltage protection, DC blocking capacitors, andintroduction of a common mode or bias voltage for subsequent processingstages. Terminated receive signals 515 are presented to multi-inputcomparators 520, which perform the H4 detection by performing summation521 and difference or comparison 522 operations. In this example, adirect mapping of comparator outputs to received data 525 is shown.

As with the described transmitter example, multiple processing phasesmay be used to allow symbol signaling rates greater than might besupported by a single circuit instance in the available semiconductortechnology. FIG. 5B illustrates multi-phase receive processing, with anexample four phase embodiment of receive comparator subsystem 524. Toshow the transparent nature of the multi-phase processing technique, theexample portion 524 of FIG. 5A may be replaced by the four phaseembodiment of FIG. 5B, retaining common inputs 515 and outputs 525.

As shown in FIG. 5B, terminated receive signals 515 are captured bysample-and-hold 530, providing stable signal levels 535 as inputs toeach of the example four processing phases 540. To provide the maximumprocessing time to each processing phase 540 (which in this example iscomprised of the receive comparator component 520 of FIG. 5A), onesample-and-hold per input signal is provided per phase (thus, in thisexample, sixteen total) with each operating at one quarter the receivesymbol rate. Detected results 545 from all phases are combined bymultiplexer 550 into a combined received data stream equivalent to thatof FIG. 5A. Other embodiments may incorporate different numbers ofphases and/or different numbers of sample-and-hold elements providingdifferent timing constraints, and may incorporate greater or lesseramounts of the receive system into the multiple processing phases.

H4 Code with Digital Feedback Equalization

Modern high-speed serial receiver designs are strongly reliant onDecision Feedback Equalization (DFE) methods, which are well knownsolutions for compensation of transmission medium perturbationsincluding signal reflections and crosstalk. It had been observed thatsuch perturbations are driven by delayed components of previouslytransmitted data (e.g. as delayed reflections from impedancediscontinuities in the communications path) which interfere withsubsequently transmitted data. Thus, detected data may be stored by aDFE system at the receiver, and suitably delayed and attenuatedcomponents subtracted from the current input signal so as to nullifythose effects.

This simple feedback loop DFE is constrained by the need to fully detectthe value of the currently received data bit in time to feed it back ascompensation for signals in the next signal interval. As transmissionrates increase, this window of time becomes smaller. Furthermore,distributing receive processing across multiple processing phasesincreases throughput, at the cost of latency. Thus, information about agiven receive interval's data may not be available for many receivecycles. Solutions using “unrolled” DFE correction are known, allowinginline compensation to be performed for the critical initial receiveintervals of the DFE process.

Classic binary DFE solutions may be combined with the described H4receiver designs at the point where individual modulation modes(representing individual data bits) are detected, if the signalreflections requiring compensation are similar for the four signalpaths. Each mode is communicated as signals over all four signal paths,but the combinations of such signals is by definition orthogonal foreach mode, thus signal perturbations on distinct paths is possiblethrough judicious combination of modal compensations. It should be notedthat signals encoded on the wire may take on any of four values (albeittwo at any one time) while signals representing each transmission modeare always two-valued. Thus, storage and delay components of a DFE areat least twice as complex if performed on wire signals versus modulationmode signals.

One embodiment in accordance with the invention is shown in the blockdiagram of FIG. 7A. The four receive signal inputs 701 are input toreceive detector 524 (previously described in FIGS. 5A and 5B), which inthis example is configured to produce three analog outputs 705corresponding to the transmission modes used to communicate each databit. On each such analog output, a DFE correction signal 735 from one ofthree binary DFE circuits 730 is summed 710 to nullify the signaldistortions on that analog signal, and the signals optionally convertedto digital value by comparators 740.

As is well known to those familiar with the art, the required high gainof a digital comparator is often obtained using a series of stages ofmoderate gain. External signals may be injected at an interconnectingcircuit node between two such stages; in one common example, anadjustable DC level is introduced at such a node to correct thecomparator's input balance or offset. In another embodiment, elements710 and 740 may thus represent stages within a multi-input comparator asin 520 of FIG. 5A. One familiar with the art will observe that a DFEcorrection signal may also be introduced at other circuit nodes, as oneexample at a comparator input, providing equivalent functionality.

As is common practice, the Decision Feedback Equalization correspondingto at least the first several bit times preceding the current receiveinterval are “unrolled” or performed inline along with the data pathprocessing for higher performance, rather than by a closed loop feedbackmethod, by the three unrolled binary DFE circuits 720, with DFEcorresponding to the remaining bit times being compensated beingperformed by conventional feedback loop DFE at 730.

In the embodiment shown, feedback DFE circuits 730 accept digital bitinputs and output appropriately scaled and delayed analog signals, whileunrolled DFE circuits 720 accepts digital inputs and produces digitalbit outputs. Other embodiments in accordance with the invention mayutilize different combinations of input signals and output results inthe DFE components. In one embodiment, the three DFE circuits 730operate on analog values 725, rather than from the equivalent binaryvalues 745 obtained from comparators 740.

An alternative and more complex DFE embodiment of the invention is alsoknown, which may be applied if the reflections are markedly differentamongst the four wires. In this approach shown in FIG. 7B, DFE isperformed by adding 760 four DFE correction signals 755, one for eachanalog wire signal 751 rather than for each transmission mode, allowingindependent equalization for each physical wire path at the cost ofsignificantly greater complexity and power consumption. The compensatedwire signals are processed by receive detector 524 to produce outputs765. In such an embodiment, at least the first several bits may beequalized by an unrolled binary DFE 770 operating on the threeindividual modulation modes as before. For corrections beyond thatamount, an enhanced architecture DFE is used. The three data outputs 795are re-encoded 790 into the corresponding four level symbolrepresentation 736 used on the line, and four four-level DFE circuits790 perform the remainder of the equalization, each operating on onewire-level signal to produce compensation signals 755. In someembodiments, the function of digital comparators 782 are performedwithin DFE 770, so that outputs 775 are equivalent to outputs 795.Similarly, in at least one embodiment unrolled DFE 770 operates ondigital output signals from receive detector 524 representing binarydata bits.

The number of bits of DFE compensation utilized in either describedembodiment of the invention, both as inline “unrolled” DFE and asconventional feedback DFE, may be chosen based on the needs of thespecific communications system, without limitation. At least oneembodiment in accordance with the invention includes at least some DFEoperations within the multiphase processing portion of the receiver.

Receive Method Description

To summarize and clarify the previous descriptions of receiveroperations and their interactions with receive mode DFE and/or receivesignal DFE, the following descriptions are made using the diagram ofFIG. 9.

In element 910, signals from the separate channels of the communicationsmedium are received, obtaining channel signal values representing thesignal of each channel.

In some embodiments, additional processing including amplification,filtering, and frequency-dependent amplification may be performed on thesignals of each channel as part of obtaining channel signal values, asis common practice. In some embodiments, correction signals derived frompast channel activity are incorporated in this additional processing, asone example to neutralize past signal reflections and other spuriouscommunications channel effects. Such correction based on past activityis known as Decision Feedback Equalization, herein being applied tochannel signals.

In element 920, elements of the vector signaling code are detected by amethod comprising obtaining a first sum of two selected channel signalvalues, obtaining a second sum of the remaining two channel signalvalues, and comparison of the first sum and the second sum to obtain thedetected element. Multiple elements are detected by choosing differentselected channel signal values for each element; for the example H4vector signaling code, three such elements may be detected by threedifferent permutations of channel signal values used to produce a firstsum and a second sum.

In some embodiments, correction signals derived from previously detectedelements of the vector signaling code are incorporated into detection ofcurrent elements of the vector signaling code, as one example in analternative method of neutralizing past signal reflections and otherspurious communications channel effects. As examples, a correctionsignal representing a compensation for past signal reflections and otherspurious communication channel effects impacting one or more particularmodulation modes may be introduced into element detection, so as tomodify inputs to the comparison, or to bias the comparison operationitself. Such correction based on past activity is known as DecisionFeedback Equalization, herein being applied to modulation modes of thecommunications channel.

In element 920, elements of the vector signaling code are detected by amethod comprising obtaining a first sum of two selected channel signalvalues, obtaining a second sum of the remaining two channel signalvalues, and comparison of the first sum and the second sum to obtain thedetected element. Multiple elements are detected by choosing differentselected channel signal values for each element; for the example H4vector signaling code, three such elements may be detected by threedifferent permutations of channel signal values used to produce a firstsum and a second sum.

In element 930, received data derived from the detected elements of thevector signaling code are output. As previously described, in preferredembodiments the transmit encoding is chosen such that the detectedelements of the vector signaling code directly correspond to bits of thereceived data.

The described method thus measures and acts upon physical signal inputs,and produces a physical result of received data, which may be acted uponby subsequent components of a larger system or process.

The examples presented herein illustrate the use of vector signalingcodes for point-to-point chip-to-chip interconnection. However, thisshould not been seen in any way as limiting the scope of the describedinvention. The methods disclosed in this application are equallyapplicable to other interconnection topologies and other communicationmedia including optical, capacitive, inductive, and wirelesscommunications. Thus, descriptive terms such as “voltage” or “signallevel” should be considered to include equivalents in other measurementsystems, such as “optical intensity”, “RF modulation”, etc. As usedherein, the term “physical signal” includes any suitable behavior and/orattribute of a physical phenomenon capable of conveying information.Physical signals may be tangible and non-transitory.

We claim:
 1. A method comprising obtaining a plurality of signals via aplurality of signal conductors embedded in a dielectric medium, theplurality of signal conductors having pairs of equidistant signalconductors that are adjacent to respective ground planes of a pair ofground planes arranged in parallel; generating a plurality of outputs,each output associated with a respective transmission mode of aplurality of transmission modes, wherein the plurality of outputs areformed based on comparisons between pair-wise combinations of signals ofthe obtained plurality of signals, wherein the pair-wise combinations ofsignals comprises (i) pair-wise combinations of signals obtained frompairs of horizontally-proximate signal conductors, (ii) pair-wisecombinations of signals obtained from pairs of vertically-proximatesignal conductors, and (iii) pair-wise combinations of signals obtainedfrom pairs of diagonally-proximate signal conductors.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the plurality of signals are balanced.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the pair of ground planes arranged in parallel areconnected by conductive vias.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein theplurality of transmission modes are defined by an orthogonal matrix. 5.The method of claim 4, wherein the orthogonal matrix is a Hadamardmatrix of size four.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the plurality ofsignals correspond to codewords of a vector signaling code comprisingall permutations of {+1, −⅓, −⅓, −⅓} and {−1, ⅓, ⅓, ⅓}.
 7. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the pairs of equidistant signal conductors haveperiodic horizontal offsets along a length of the dielectric medium. 8.An apparatus comprising a plurality of signal conductors embedded in adielectric medium, the plurality of signal conductors comprising pairsof equidistant signal conductors that are adjacent to respective groundplanes of a pair of ground planes arranged in parallel, each signalconductor of the plurality of signal conductors carrying a respectivesignal of a plurality of signals; a plurality of multi-input comparators(MICs) configured to generate a plurality of outputs, each MIC of theplurality of MICs connected to the plurality of signal conductors andassociated with a respective transmission mode of a plurality oftransmission modes, the plurality of MICs configured to generate theplurality of outputs based on comparisons between pair-wise combinationsof signals of the plurality of signals, wherein the pair-wisecombinations of signals comprises (i) pair-wise combinations of signalsobtained from a pair of horizontally-proximate signal conductors, (ii)pair-wise combinations of signals obtained from a pair ofvertically-proximate signal conductors, and (iii) pair-wise combinationsof signals obtained from a pair of diagonally-proximate signalconductors.
 9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the plurality ofsignals are balanced.
 10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the pair ofground planes arranged in parallel are connected via conductive vias.11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the plurality of transmissionmodes are defined by an orthogonal matrix.
 12. The apparatus of claim11, wherein the orthogonal matrix is a Hadamard matrix of size four. 13.The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the plurality of signals correspondto codewords of a vector signaling code comprising all permutations of{+1, −⅓, −⅓, −⅓} and {−1, ⅓, ⅓, ⅓}.
 14. The apparatus of claim 8,wherein the pairs of equidistant signal conductors have periodichorizontal offsets along a length of the dielectric medium.
 15. Theapparatus of claim 8, wherein the plurality of signal conductors arearranged in a square in the dielectric medium.